Thursday, March 23, 2017

Christine Baskets is saving me right now, as my hope at women's uprising around the world bangs up against the cold hard feeling that nothing at all has changed and is in fact worse than ever.A pussy-grabbing President. Girls Series 6, Episode 3. A story in the paper I can't shake about a 14 year-old gang-raped girl who felt forced to drop her case against the three men or ruin her life even further by proceeding with the trial (which would include being cruelly cross-examined). Christine Baskets is a giant pillow to cosy up on right now. That she's played by male comedian Louie Anderson only makes her womanliness more powerful and moving. How he melds himself so perfectly with this being is beyond me. She is superb. I could watch her shop at Costco, or do water aerobics forever. She makes the world brighter at at time when femininity couldn't feel more trampled on. In Girls Season 6, Episode 3, a young female writer has, upon reading another young female writer's account of a prominent male writer's coming-on to her, written an angry opinion piece about his behaviour in a small-readership magazine. The male writer invites the second female writer up to his apartment to discuss her piece - it has pissed him off. How could she write an opinion story based on someone else's account of something? It is bad writing, and she, according to the male writer, is an excellent writer. Our girl tries to hide she is flattered. The male writer is attractive, contemplative, celebrated, high-bookshelved. He is one of her favourite all-time writers. He reads the young writer a piece he wrote himself about the night in question - how the girl who wrote the initial piece had thrown herself at him, and when he tried to get to know her, offered nothing of her true self, only her body. We empathise. He is sensitive, broken - a father, an isolated soul. Our girl opens up to him about the advances of a creepy school teacher. Our man feels for her.He asks if they can lie on the bed together. She is unsure, but does it. We are with him. The poor guy. So alone on his beautiful sunlit bed. So misunderstood.Suddenly his dick is there. On her. In broad daylight.Mechanically she holds it for a moment. Then jolts. EW! She jumps up and shouts at him, disgusted, appalled.A smile spreads across his face.It dawns on us, on her: he has fucked her over. The entire afternoon has been nothing but a game, won by his final masterstroke. She leaves the apartment in a daze. Women pass her one after the other on the street, each entering the man's building. Are they real? It seems far-fetched. But also, not really.Such a sickening reaffirmation of the state of things. We are playing, but not really. She does manage to reject the dick. But his card has been played: and it trumps (!) them all. See how easy it was? To get you - who this morning hated my guts, to lie on the bed with me?I shudder.Men will put dicks on us in broad daylight.Trump will grab pussies and be President.Guys will rape girls in parks, and get away with it.But, thank God, Louie Anderson will play Christine Baskets. Thank heavens for Christine Baskets.

Monday, March 20, 2017

There were these two grandparents, I think they were Janine's. They were very old and one of them got diagnosed with terminal cancer. Rather than endure it, they drove to the far edge of a field, put the gas pipe in the car, held hands and started it. We were in café Iberia ordering coffees when the Johnny Cash version of U2's All I Want is You came on. It had been on our minds since Mr A had told us he was going to play it on his acoustic guitar as his bride walks down the aisle at Joshua Tree. 'You're my trapeze girl,' said Mr Rabbit. 'You're my sexy dwarf,' I said.'You mean my strong man.''No, the beautiful dwarf who loves her so much and goes flying over them all.''But she goes off with the strong man.' 'Ok, the strong man.'On our way to my sister's with the coffees we had to find the song on Spotify and listen to it really loud. It was the first time in years I had heard it and couldn't breathe for crying as the love story played out in my mind's youTube. The coda was just beginning when we pulled in to her house. The kids came running to the window. There was no switching the song off. We sat rigid in the driveway, holding hands until that final strain. My brother-in-law gave us a confused look as he walked past the car.

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Kiki came home last week and said that Paul and Angelo climbed under the monkey bars to look at her knickers as she swung across. That's not cool, we said. Did you tell the teachers? Yes. Did they stop? Yes. Today I couldn't find her usual uniform so I grabbed one of the too-big ones that I accidentally bought thinking she was a giant. They were long and stiff and below her knees and she was pleased, she said, though she had despised them previously, as it would be harder now for Paul and Angelo to see her knickers.

So it begins, I thought. At 5 years of age, already modifying herself to accomodate for the behaviour of boys.

And the sad thing is I don't even blame them - it's their nature to be curious. It's not like their dads taught them that. They just feel like it.

Kiki said the boys haven't been under the monkey bars again since that day.

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Today Fluffball ate her own poop. I was getting her out of her cage as per our usual morning ritual. Two of her little round poops were on the little sheepskin rug we put in the sleeping bit of her hutch (it just occurred to me - is that barbaric?). As I reached out for her she shuffled back into the corner. The poops were between her and my giant smiling head speaking loving nothings as I coaxed her towards her breakfast of lawn. She looked at me. Then she hopped forward and ate a poop. BOOM!I watched in shock as her little mouth chewed the poop and swallowed it. She then sat still, looking straight at me. How d'ya like that?It disturbed me, not only because watching someone savour and swallow their own excrement touches a deep existential nerve, but because I'm in constant fear that Fluffball is dying. The vet said they won't vaccinate even pet bunnies against myxomatosis (they need bunnies to die so they can control the population and they can't even take the tiny risk of a non-vaxed fluffy home bunny escaping and weakening the deadly power of the virus). The vet shook her head and said she is constantly putting down mixofied pet bunnies, and described their death in horrifying detail. Basically their veins leak, which is why their eyes go red. Their bodies fill with blood - there's no saving them. She said bunnies around here are more likely to die than live very long. There have been a few moments when I have wished Fluffball dead, especially when we have to gang up and chase her around the backyard in the evening to put her in her hutch (so she doesn't get eaten by a fox). But it never lasts because I love her so much. From the moment I held her tiny white fluffy body in my arms I was in love. It's hard to love a bunny. They are in constant fear, so they can never love you back. They only love safety, and love is danger. All Fluffball ever wants is to hide in the salvia bush or under our bed, all day long, still, ready to spring out if death, or our hand, approaches. She can't communicate. She doesn't purr or bark or pant. When I look deep in her eyes I do see love. Sometimes her heart rate comes right down in my arms and I can feel she is at peace with me. That's as close as you get to knowing Fluffball is ok. Are you happy? Do you like living with us?Do you hate your hutch for a reason - ie, is there a spider in there we can't see?Are you getting enough food?Are you angry at us for not getting you a friend?She ate poop. Was it a message? Was she telling me that's what she thinks of my attempts to give her a good life? Was she sick? Suicidal? I rushed in and told Mr Rabbit. He raised his eyebrows slightly then went back to his New Yorker. I didn't want to tell Kiki, but I did, as she ate her breakfast. She looked at me, interested. 'I'll google it,' I said.Bunny eats own poop.The first thing that came up, to my relief, was this:It may seem gross, but rabbits normally eat some of their feces once a day, either early in the morning or late at night. These special feces are called cecotropes, or 'night feces.' They are produced through fermentation of food in the part of the rabbit's digestive tract called the cecum.Phew. She's not unhappy, sick or dying. She's just a little shit-eater.